Health Policy Resources: Organization and agency websites

AHRQ's mission is to improve the quality, safety, efficiency and effectiveness of health care for all Americans.

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the primary Federal agency for improving access to health care services for people who are uninsured, isolated or medically vulnerable.

Public health agency for New York City

Sets national health goals and objectives and supporting programs, services, and education activities with the goal of improving the health of all Americans.

Our primary role is to direct and coordinate international health within the United Nations’ system.

APHA champions the health of all people and all communities. We are the only organization that influences federal policy, has a 140-plus year perspective and brings together members from all fields of public health.

The Commonwealth Fund is a private foundation that aims to promote a high performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society's most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults. The Fund carries out this mandate by supporting independent research on health care issues and making grants to improve health care practice and policy. An international program in health policy is designed to stimulate innovative policies and practices in the United States and other industrialized countries.

The Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC), a coalition of chief executives from all disciplines within American healthcare, is the exclusive forum for the nation’s healthcare leaders to jointly develop policies, plans, and programs to achieve their vision of a 21st century system that makes affordable, high-quality care accessible to all Americans.

The International Association of Health Policy (IAHP) is a scientific, political and cultural organization founded in 1977. It is an international network of scholars, health workers and activists with the aim of promoting the scientific analysis of public health issues and a forum for international comparisons and debate on health policy issues.

A leader in health policy analysis and health journalism, the Kaiser Family Foundation is dedicated to filling the need for trusted information on national health issues.  Kaiser is a non-profit organization focusing on national health issues, as well as the U.S. role in global health policy.  Unlike grant-making foundations, Kaiser develops and runs its own policy analysis, journalism and communications programs, sometimes in partnership with major news organizations. We serve as a non-partisan source of facts, analysis and journalism for policymakers, the media,  the health policy community and the public. Our product is information, always provided free of charge — from the most sophisticated policy research, to basic facts and numbers, to in depth health policy news coverage provided by our news service, KHN, to information young people can use to improve their health or the general public can use to understand the health reform law.

Physicians for a National Health Program is a single issue organization advocating a universal, comprehensive single-payer national health program. PNHP has more than 20,000 members and chapters across the United States.
Since 1987, we've advocated for reform in the U.S. health care system. We educate physicians and other health professionals about the benefits of a single-payer system--including fewer administrative costs and affording health insurance for the 30 million Americans who have none.
Our members and physician activists work toward a single-payer national health program in their communities. PNHP performs ground breaking research on the health crisis and the need for fundamental reform, coordinates speakers and forums, participates in town hall meetings and debates, contributes scholarly articles to peer-reviewed medical journals, and appears regularly on national television and news programs advocating for a single-payer system.

From a national to a local level, we are working to help expand opportunity to pursue the best health possible.

Medicare data used to document distribution of health resources across the United States. Understanding of the Efficiency and Effectiveness of the Health Care System For more than 20 years, the Dartmouth Atlas Project has documented glaring variations in how medical resources are distributed and used in the United States. The project uses Medicare data to provide information and analysis about national, regional, and local markets, as well as hospitals and their affiliated physicians. This research has helped policymakers, the media, health care analysts and others improve their understanding of our health care system and forms the foundation for many of the ongoing efforts to improve health and health systems across America.

Hospital Compare has information about the quality of care at over 4,000 Medicare-certified hospitals across the country. You can use Hospital Compare to find hospitals and compare the quality of their care.

Affiliated with the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, SHADAC is a multidisciplinary health policy research center with a focus on state policy. SHADAC specializes in:
- State and federal health policy and health reform
- Health insurance exchanges
- Payment and delivery system reform
- Medicaid
- Health systems
- Barriers to coverage and access
- Population health

Provides state-level health financing, health costs and budgets, and health coverage data.